Method for an Electronic Controlled Platooning System of Agricultural Vehicles
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ICVES 2009 First published in: Method for an electronic controlled platooning system of agricultural vehicles X. Zhang, Prof. Dr. M. Geimer, L. Grandl and B. Kammerbauer automated using electronic control systems [2]. In the past Abstract -This paper presents a method to develop an ten years, many research works have been carried out to electronic controlled platooning system, which will enable an develop an automated agricultural vehicle to replace the autonomous agricultural vehicle to follow a leading tractor labor workforce in the farming operation. In [3] an with a given lateral and longitudinal offset. In our study not only the follow-up motions but also the problems such as automatic steering system was developed to guide a John avoiding obstacle, turning at the end of the field have been Deere 7800 tractor along prescribed straight row courses considered. With the aid of the RTK GPS systems the position with an average error of approximately 2 cm. In [4] a robot of the leading tractor can be obtained with accuracy in the tractor was developed based on RTK-GPS and gyroscope to range of centimeters. The position points of the leading tractor provide navigation information for the path tracking. Such are transmitted by wireless modems to the following vehicle field robot with auto-steering systems are capable of steering continually to provide the target position points for the guidance of the following agricultural vehicle. With the method along target lines automatically, but the application of such of curve fitting a desired path for the following vehicle could be autonomous agricultural vehicles can only be confined to a dynamically created. Based on the target position points and laboratory environment, where obstacles and other safety the path planning, the desired speed and the desired steering related problems could be foreseen. To solve the safety angle of the following tractor are calculated. In order to ensure problems in the real field operations many other high-tech the precise navigation of the driverless following tractor, a sensors have been used to sense the surrounding course tracking controller and a speed controller have to be designed and implemented. In addition to the motion control environment of the farming vehicles. In [5] a machine vision algorithms which could keep the autonomous agricultural based guidance system was demonstrated for an autonomous vehicle following the leading tractor, considerations about agricultural small-grain harvester using a cab-mounted safety and robustness of the whole platooning control system camera. In the recent years laser or laser radar (ladar) have would be issued at the end of this paper. been more and more applied in autonomous vehicles to detect obstacles for the safety reasons. In [6] ladar has been Index Terms - Autonomous agricultural vehicle; Navigation used to navigate a small robot tractor through an orchard and control; Vehicular Safety; Inter-Vehicle-Communication field. However most of the solutions have been successfully realized only in laboratory conditions. Field trials I. INTRODUCTION demonstrated that an automatic guided agricultural vehicle could assist the operator but could not completely replace The demand on increasing agricultural productivity and the operator because of safety considerations. Some the decreasing labor force in the agricultural industry have solutions which have been proved robust in field tests were made the automation of agricultural machinery inevitable. very costly and still a long way from commercialization. On Automation and electrification in the agricultural machinery such a background an electronic controlled platooning have become a trend in the recent years. With the modern system can be regarded as an intermediate step on the road technology such as real-time kinematic (RTK) GPS systems to completely autonomous agricultural vehicles. Because of the accuracy of the positioning can reach 1 to 2 cm per 10 the presence of the operator on one of the agricultural km [1], which makes the precise navigation of agricultural vehicles, the safety problem can be easily resolved without machinery possible. With the introduction of X-BY-Wire consideration of costly sensors and complicated sensor technology in the modern agricultural machinery the fusion algorithm. Thanks to the auto-steering and auto-cruise automatic guidance of land vehicles has become reality and control, which have been implemented as standard technique more and more functions in agricultural vehicles have be in commercial agricultural vehicles, the operator can be relieved from the tedious driving routines and concentrate This work is supported by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and himself mainly on the supervising of the working processes. Consumer Protection of the German Government. X. Zhang is with the Institute for Vehicle Science and Mobile Machines The primary objective of this paper is to introduce a method at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Gotthard-Franz-Str. 8, D- to develop an electronic controlled two-tractor platooning 76131 Germany. (phone: 0049-721-6088640; fax: 0049-721-6088609; e- system, which will enable one unmanned tractor to follow up mail: [email protected]). Prof. Dr. M. Geimer is head of the Institute for Vehicle Science and another leading tractor with a given lateral and longitudinal Mobile Machines at KIT. (e-mail: [email protected]). offset. This system can allow one operator to utilize more L. Grandl is with the AGCO Corporation at Marktoberdorf, Germany. than two agricultural machines simultaneously, so that the (e-mail: [email protected]). B. Kammerbauer is with the geo-konzept GmbH at Adelschlag, productivity of the working process will be substantially Germany. (e-mail: [email protected]). improved and the competitiveness of the agriculture EVA-STAR (Elektronisches Volltextarchiv – Scientific Articles Repository) 978-1-4244-5443-3/09/$26.00 ©2009 IEEE 161 http://digbib.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/volltexte/1000015876 producer will be enhanced. In addition to the follow-up motion which has been demonstrated in many other research works, the obstacle avoidance maneuver and the turn-around of the vehicle at the end of a row will be considered. The safety and robustness of such a platooning system will be issued as well. II. EXPERIMENTAL EQUIPMENTS AND METHODS Fig. 1 shows one of the experimental agricultural vehicles, which are used to compose the platooning system. The leading vehicle as well as the following vehicle is a 265 kW four-wheel drive Fendt 936 Vario model which is 5.65 m long, 2.75 m wide and 3.37 m high. The equipment used to measure the tractor position of the leading tractor is different from the following tractor. The leading tractor uses a Trimble navigation system, which was mounted by the geo- konzept GmbH. With the AgGPS 252 GPS-receiver attached to the roof of the cab and the 450 radio equipment which receives the real-time kinematic (RTK) signals at 10 Hz data throughput rate, the position accuracy is less then 2.5 cm. Using data from the GPS receiver and internal sensors the position data can be further corrected by the NavController in the cab which can compensate the roll, pitch and yaw movement of the vehicle during measurement. Fig. 2 Hardware architecture of the tractor in the platooning system In Fig. 3 a method to design a platooning system for two tractors is demonstrated. The leading tractor is driven by an operator and collects its position, heading angle and velocity every 100 ms from satellites. Its position will be corrected by the RTK signal from a reference station and by the navigation controller in the cab. The corrected kinematic information will be read into the AutoBox over a CAN interface. Other status information about the leading tractor Fig. 1 Fendt 936 Vario tractor and its cabin’s inner view will also be collected either periodically or on demand by the AutoBox from the CAN interface. All these information In the following tractor an auto-guide system was already is shaped in desired data set and will be transferred to the installed to measure the position of the vehicle. This system following tractor according to priorities. Once the current is an accessory equipment of the Fendt 936 Vario tractor and position of the leading tractor is obtained, the trajectory of can correct the positioning error caused by the inclination of the leading tractor will be updated using curve fitting. the ground. A gyroscope is also integrated in this auto-guide According to the updated trajectory of the leading tractor, system, so that the positioning can reach the same accuracy the new path segment for the guidance of the following as the Trimble system. Both tractors are equipped with an vehicle can also be obtained every 100 ms. industrial computer, an AutoBox which is the interface between the GPS receiver and the tractor control unit (Fig. lateral offset 2). The industrial computer AutoBox is composed of a Leading tractor PowerPC 750GX processor board running at 1 GHz and several peripheral boards, which can communicate with external equipments over controller area network (CAN) or longitudinal trajectory offset serial interfaces. With the real-time operating system segement of running on the PowerPC the AutoBox performs data leading tractor collection, condition monitoring and control signal computations using software written at KIT. wireless path segment communication to guide the unmanned vehicle predetermined tolerance zone Following tractor Fig. 3 Schematic diagram of the platooning system for two tractors using GPS and wireless communication. 162 A vital part of an autonomous, unmanned vehicle is Y safety. In such a platooning system, the presence of the operator enhances the safety of the system in unexpected cmaster dangerous situations. To disburden the operator from the X ψ k+1 routine supervising work and assist him by decision making, [x , y ,ψ ] programs doing condition monitoring have been integrated k+1 k+1 k+1 in the software.